Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Social networking: old school

Over at VentureBlog is this great post about Cravath, social networking, and the value of maintaining strong corporate cultures:

Old School Social Networking

As I type this, I am sitting in the Newark airport watching the snow fall and foolishly pretending that I will get on a plane this evening. It is just not going to happen. On the good side, it is giving me the opportunity to reflect on the alumni event from which I am returning.

For a few years of my life I was an associate at the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City. Practicing law at Cravath was a great experience. Not because it was fun. Truth be told, some of the time it was not that much fun at all. But it was a phenomenal education. Cravath represents many of the most powerful companies in the world and as a junior attorney you were given the opportunity to look behind the curtain. Of course, you were given the opportunity to look behind the curtain 100 hours a week. But in exchange for those hundred hour weeks, you got to learn the intimate details of the companies that drive the world’s economies.

The thing that I have always admired about Cravath is that it has an incredibly strong corporate culture. … VentureBlog

I continue to have good experiences with LinkedIn, but I seem to be in the minority among my close friends. Many signed up because I invited them, but of the 65 connections I have at LinkedIn, one third have just one connection (me) and just one quarter have connections in the double-digits.

I’d love to hear from some folks who aren’t fond of social networking or who don’t get it. I see tremendous potential in the model, and with all the money being spent, it’s clear at least a few VCs agree with me. But if my experience at LinkedIn is any indication (and I have no reason to think otherwise), it will end up catering to a small-ish group of highly-motivated networkers and not facilitate the connections among the less motivated that would make the system truly useful.

I totally agree with you... I have been introduced recently to Social networking software... and I looked up my company... The 3 people that were listed in the system havnt worked at our company for over 2 years... and when they were at the company... the werent exactly the best friends of anyone thats still here... Trying to get a contact at our company out of those people listed will get you nowhere...

I think that it has a lot of potential, but it needs to be screened better, or people need to take a more active role in making sure that the contacts are worth something.